


How Much Marriage Matters

by Tortellini



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Conflict, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Denial, Denial of Feelings, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Humor, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, Male Friendship, Male Homosexuality, Religious Conflict, Religious Guilt, Romantic Friendship, Self-Denial, Unhappy marriage, Wedding Rings, Wordcount: 100-500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 00:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12221745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tortellini/pseuds/Tortellini
Summary: Joseph Christiansen is married. If he's honest with himself though, he wouldn't say he was very "happily" married, but still. Robert Small knows this. And yet in the end they both make the decision to ignore it.Oneshot/drabble





	How Much Marriage Matters

Joseph was a good man. He tried to be a good husband, a good father. He was a christian and very grounded in his faith. His hobbies included cookouts, and baking, and being a youth group minister (and a "cool" one at that too). To the outside, his life was perfect. But Mary drank too much. He tried--God as his witness, he tried so hard. Not for his own sake, for their kids! Deep down though, he had known that his wife wasn't in love with him. She hadn't been for a long time now. 

The spare bedroom in his house became a solace: Mary slept in their room, and Joseph in the other. They drove to church services in separate cars. Mary didn't even put an effort in front of their kids. And he couldn't help but know it was his fault. No one paid him any attention, not the attention he craved deep down. 

Joseph hadn't let himself want that sort of attention for a long time--the kind from men. He didn't want to cheat on Mary even if love wasn't involved anymore. Being unfaithful to your spouse, much less with another man of all things, were both sins. And yet...when Joseph looked at Robert Small, all of those thoughts tended to go right out the window. Robert was gruff, broad-shouldered and unshaven, and he smelled like cigarettes and whiskey and...faint cologne. 

He had fallen hard for him. It'd been slow, but as soon as he'd realized it, it'd been sure. It terrified Joseph in so many ways. And it didn't help that Rob had no qualms about wanting him either. 

To his credit, Joseph said no the first time. 

Mary had disappeared; sometimes he wondered if she knew deep down that he'd never loved her, not like that. If she ever saw him stare for just a moment too long at men they knew. He had never wanted to hurt her but it was too late for that. Right now, it was just him and Robert. 

"--actually," Joseph tried, one last time, and in vain he knew. He held up his hand to the other man, showing him his wedding ring. "I'm married." Robert knew this though. He was their neighbor after all, and sometimes Robert and Mary went out drinking together. Anyway, maybe, just maybe, Robert would indeed do the right thing and just leave him be (even though that wasn't what he wanted deep down). 

Robert took the ring off his fingers with his teeth. And then...uh, did he just swallow it? 

"Oh." Joseph said in surprise. He didn't have time to say anything else though, because the other man had just slammed him into the wall for a kiss. 

And boy did he need it. 

 

 


End file.
